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Presidential Address: The Scandinavian Colonies in England and Normandy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
The Scandinavian settlements in England and France naturally invite comparison. In point of time they are little more than a generation apart. The colonies in eastern England were founded between 876 and 879. The beginning of the colony which became the duchy of Normandy cannot be dated so precisely. But there can be no serious doubt that the Scandinavian occupation of Upper Normandy had taken place by the year 918 and there is good reason for believing that it began soon after 911. It is also probable that a considerable number of veterans who had been campaigning in England between 892 and 896 took part in the foundation of Normandy, for there is a definite statement in the Chronicle to the effect that vikings who had made no profit in the recent war crossed to the Seine in the latter year. In any case, the movement from which the duchy of Normandy arose clearly belongs to the same phase of Scandinavian enterprise which had founded the English Danelaw and thrown the kingdom of the West Franks into confusion in the last third of the ninth century.
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References
page 1 note 1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 876, 877, and 880.
page 1 note 2 The circumstances of the occupation have recently been discussed, with a critical discussion of the historical evidence, by ProfessorDouglas, D. C., English Historical Review (1942), lvii, pp. 417–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 1 note 3 Under 897.
page 2 note 1 De moribus et actis primorum Normanniæ ducum, ed. Lair, J. (1865).Google Scholar
page 3 note 1 Richer, , Libri quatuor historiarum, ed. Waitz, G., p. 180.Google Scholar
page 3 note 2 The well-known account of early Norman history by Prentout, H., Essai sur les ongines et la fondation du duche de Normandie (Paris, 1911), does not discuss this kind of evidenceGoogle Scholar.
page 4 note 1 Copenhagen, 1897.
page 4 note 2 Paris, 1920–9.
page 4 note 3 Über Ursprung und Bedeutung der französischen Ortsnamen, Part ii, Heidelberg, 1933.
page 5 note 1 e.g. Daubeuf (Eure), Daubœuf (Calvados), ‘booth in a valley’, Elbeuf (Seine Inférieure), ‘booth by the elder-trees’.
page 5 note 2 See below, p. 6.
page 5 note 3 Rarely found, but survives in Torps (Calvados), le Torpt (Eure).
page 5 note 4 Fairly common. Survives, e.g., in numerous examples of Le Thuit (Eure) and in compounds such as Longthuit (Seine Inférieure).
page 5 note 5 Very common, both independently as in Le Tôt (Manche) and in compounds. Ecquetot, which contains ON eski, ‘ash grove’, is identical with Eastoft in Axholme. Sassetot (Seine Inférieure) contains the personal name Saxi, which occurs in Sasseville (below, p. 8) and elsewhere in Normandy.
page 5 note 6 As in Saint-Waast-la-Hogue (Manche).
page 5 note 7 Often appears independently as in le Houlme (Seine Intérieure).
page 5 note 8 Of which the most interesting compound is Fécamp, ‘fish haven’.
page 5 note 9 As in Honflenr (Calvados). This word does not seem to occur in Danish England.
page 5 note 10 Very common, Houlbec (Eure), ‘stream in a hollow’, has several parallels in England, such as Holbeck near Leeds.
page 5 note 11 e.g. Houlgate (Calvados), ‘Hollow way’.
page 5 note 12 Common, as in Longuemare (Seine Inférieure).
page 5 note 13 Common, as in Daubeuf above.
page 7 note 1 Cartulaire de l'abbaye de la Sainte-Trinité du mont de Rouen, ed. Deville, A. (Collection des cartulaires de France, iii. 1840).Google Scholar
page 7 note 2 Generally represented in Normandy by the Saxon equivalent Os, as in Osbern for Ásbjorn, Osmund for Ásmundr, or by the Frankish equivalent Ans, as in Ansger for Ásgeirr, Ansfrid for Ásfrior. On the conditions which produced these replacements, see von Feilitzen, O., The Pre-Conquest personal names of Domesday Book (Uppsala, 1937, P 164.)Google Scholar In course of time, Ans frequently became An, as in the name of Anquetil Mallory, a well-known baron of the earl of Leicester's fee in the reign of Henry II.
page 7 note 3 The relationship between the personal nomenclature of the Scandinavians and that of other Germanic peoples is set out in detail by Naumann, H. in Altnordische Namenstudien (Berlin, 1912).Google Scholar
page 8 note 1 Published in Danske Studier (1911), pp. 59–84.
page 8 note 2 Discussed most recently by Professor Douglas in the article, noted above, p. 1, which indicates the weight of the evidence for Rollo's Norwegian descent.
page 9 note 1 Other examples are likely to appear when the definitive collection of Danish personal names appearing in Danmarhs Gamle Personnavne (Copenhagen, 1936–1939)Google Scholar has been completed. At present it does not extend beyond the letter I.
page 9 note 2 Cartulaire de l;'abbaye de la Sainte-Trinié, pp. 437 et seqq.
page 11 note 1 The contrast has often been obscured by inaccurate parallels drawn between individual names in England and Normandy, such as the statement that Hacqueville (Manche) is identical with Haconby in Lincolnshire. In reality, the two names differ from each other fundamentally. Each contains the ON personal name Hákon. But while Haconby is a purely Scandinavian compound, Hacqueville is partly Scandinavian and partly Frankish Latin.